This invention relates to a method and apparatus for rigidifying textile pieces of varying cross section for the production of outerwear clothing by coating same with plastic, in which the plastic is transferred into textile pieces lying one behind the other on a conveying device by means of a compressing cylinder bearing against the textile pieces during their coating.
In a known device (DTOS 2,552,878) the compressing cylinder is mounted above a pinch roller of the conveying device. The compressing cylinder or the pinch roller is height-adjustable, for the purpose of coating and non-coating portions of the textile pieces brought past it. The textile pieces can thus be coated either entirely or only partially during their conveyance. With regard to the quality of the coating of the textile pieces, it is important to control the pressure with which the compressing cylinder lies on the textile pieces in the course of the coating process. The pressure must be adapted both to the composition of the textile piece and to the degree of desired rigidification. If, for example, the plastic is to penetrate deeply into the textile surface structure, then the pressure must be greater than where the plastic should only adhere to the surface of the textile piece. The viscosity of the coating plastic must also be taken into consideration. The pressure exerted is primarily determined by the composition of the textile piece to be coated, the distance between the compressing cylinder and pinch roller, and the type of mounting of these elements during the coating process. The known device has no means for automatic, mechanical adaptation of the compressing cylinder force to changes in the textile pieces to be coated, for example between different blanks or when the blanks are lying irregularly or in a random position on the conveying device bringing them to the compressing cylinder for coating. But if these differences are present, then the textile pieces are coated by this known device with different pressures and thus different coating qualities, which is disadvantageous in several respects.